– Next Tuesday is Christmas, so the Best And Worst Of WWE Raw will take a one-week vacation. I’ll still get up an open discussion thread for Christmas Eve, and we’ll pick back up formally on January 1.

– Smackdown is live tonight on the USA Network, so be sure to come back to With Leather and hang out with us in the Super Smackdown Live open discussion thread. I am probably not going to do a Best and Worst report for it, because I’ve already done two this week. If that makes you sad, go read the Best and Worst of TLC again!

– Thanks for a great year of reports, everybody. I couldn’t do this without the generous comments and feedback you guys give me. I love you all dearly.

Please click through to enjoy the last Best And Worst Of WWE Raw column of the year, for December 17, 2012.

Worst: Tell Me I Did Not Just Watch A 3-Hour Commercial For The WWE App

If you read the Best And Worst Of WWE TLC ’12, you’ll remember that it’s what’s being called a, “Happy Brandon” report. Apparently when I’m having a bad day (or, I don’t know, the show is terrible), my reports take a very snarky, negative point of view. When I’m happy, or the show is great, it gets me happy and optimistic and the report reflects that. Less HERE IS EVERYTHING RACIST AND SEXIST and more WHOA CODY RHODES’ PUNCHES ARE AWESOME.

I should warn you up from that The Best And Worst Of Raw 12/18/12 is not a Happy Brandon report.

The Slammy Awards are the worst show of the year. It’s right here at Christmas time, when WWE has an usually long build for Royal Rumble. Most of the time they know people will buy the Rumble for the Rumble, which is why they still wait until 2 weeks before it happens to formally book it, and we end up with, like, Bob Holly world title shots. This year The Rock is wrestling on the show, so if they wait until the PPV pre-show to announce anything other than “The Rock” and “Royal Rumble match,” I’ll be shocked. So if you add all that to The Holidays, when WWE has a pre-taped thing of Hornswoggle dancing for The Troops and CM Punk passive-aggressively hosting a movie as “WWE week” and knows nobody’s going to give a shit about their programming until January, it’s not the best time for a wrestling show.

This year the Slammys aren’t (totally) worked to set up feuds or whateveer, they were voted on with the WWE App. If you didn’t know this, perhaps you saw Booker T’s FRIENDS, LET US ALL TAKE OUT OUR SMART PHONES AND DOWNLOAD THE APP NOW, IT’S OKAY, I’LL WAIT announcement. Anyway, it takes what was already zero f**king fun away from voting on Twitter with hashtags and puts the fate of THREE HOURS OF TELEVISED PROGRAMMING in the hands of whatever kid loves John Cena enough to want to watch him stall between commercial breaks.

Boogeyman’s gimmick was dumb but effective, and if he’d had the wrestling ability of a Dolph Ziggler he probably could’ve taken it to God knows where. Unfortunately he had the wrestling ability of Raja f**king Lion and couldn’t make anything look natural, so his matches are full of random choke holds, shimmy dancing and Stinger Splashes where he gets a running start, jumps straight up about a foot away from the guy and then “splashes” down on them with the impact of an Eve Torres moonsault.

For whatever reason I have a lot of oddly positive memories of The Boogeyman, but damn, watching him move around is like an endless loop of Kelly Kelly running the ropes.

Boogey showing up on Raw got me interested, I’ll admit, but then they came back from commercial and he was just … gone. Booker mugged to the camera and asked us to please tell him he didn’t just see that. Why would we do that? The Boogeyman was a wrestler. You worked with him. If Boogeyman showed up and started vomiting Wendy’s on Booker’s lectern or whatever, that would’ve been a Tell Me I Didn’t Just See That moment. What, we have to deny the existence of shitty weird people now?

Funny enough, Boogeyman wrestling anybody would’ve been a top shelf wrestling match on this show.

Worst: Hurry Up And Finish These Matches, We’ve Got To Do More Polls!

I can only get so upset about Damien Sandow losing clean to Rey Mysterio in two minutes on a Slammy Awards show. On a normal show, this would be terrible. Sandow has become a “tag team wrestler,” which means he can’t beat anybody in a singles match, not even other tag team wrestlers wrestling singles. On a Slammy show, it joins every other match as an exercise in going through the motions until the production team is ready to go with their next awards thing.

It felt a lot like somebody set their WWE ’13 game to “quick,” and Mysterio just hit his finish and had to win. While I’m thinking about it, what happened to Car Stereo’s combo gear? That was great, and took the focus off of Rey Mysterio’s Virgil At Conventions shirt.

Best: Kofi Kingston Continues To Do What It Is He Does, Which Is Make You Say “Wow”

… as in, “Wow, this guy has no idea how to wrestle.”

Seriously though, I’ll give him credit. Of the nominees announced, Kofi deserved this Slammy, and his acceptance speech was harmless and nice so good for him. The Maddox low blow and Punk jumping the Rock didn’t make me say TELL ME I DIDN’T JUST SEE THAT, they just made me wonder where characters and stories were going. The Sheamus/Daniel Bryan match (which, again, was shown IN ITS F**KING ENTIRETY) just made me sad again. Kofi’s Rumble save wasn’t as good as John Morrison’s Spider-Man act on the barricade from the previous year, but it was the best thing he’s ever done without Randy Orton having to have a NASCAR.

Worst: Hey Now, You Can’t Steal Eve’s Thing, She Just Started Doing It

The Naomi experiment from TLC is over. She’s back to being a Funkadactyl, and the Divas division is back to being the same three ladies as always. I like Kaitlyn, though, so I’ll continue accepting it for what it is, and secretly hoping that somebody from WWE Creative was at ACW’s Delusions Of Our Childish Days and signed up every woman on it.

The only thing I really didn’t like was Kaitlyn aping Eve’s post-match pose. Not that her DOING it is bad, necessarily, but it’s just that Eve’s only been doing it for two weeks. That’s not long enough for it to become her signature thing, or for babyfaces to start using it to rub losses in her face. Kinda like when DX suddenly has a cherished tour bus, and a week or two later Stone Cold’s destroying it with a girder. Don’t rush to the punchline, guys.

Page 3

Worst: The Road Dogg Says The Road Dogg’s Two Sentences, As Only The Road Dogg Can!

I think JBL saying “unbelievable!” after Road Dogg said the only two sentences he has ever said as a pro wrestler (“welcome to the dog house” and the “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages” gag) is what turned this into a Worst. I mean, it was the 5th and 6th best members of my least favorite stable ever* giving Jerry Lawler the 2012 Slammy Award for Best Heart Attack Had On Raw, which was fine (Heyman should’ve won it), but come on, JBL, it was pretty believable.

Seriously though, I think there’s one thing in each of these categories that makes me sad. This one was D-Generation X standing around in a circle watching Damien Sandow get beaten up while everyone laughs and cheers. Also seriously, how does Brock Lesnar not win this? Jerry Lawler was fine for all but like a month of 2012 and he came back to his job of sitting and talking quietly. Brock Lesnar came back from diverticulitis AND a nearly decade-long hiatus to break Triple H’s arm. TWICE.

*D-X power rankings

1. Shawn Michaels

2. Rick Rude

3. Triple H

4. Chyna**

5. Road Dogg

6. Billy Gunn

7. Hornswoggle

8. Great Khali

9. The Boogeyman

10. X-Pac

**Hey, she defeated 9 other wrestlers to become this year’s Queen Of The Ring, that’s pretty impressive.

Worst: Here’s Kofi Kingston Versus Lord WHOOPS IT’S OVER

Much like how I can’t complain about Damien Sandow losing to Rey Mysterio in two minutes, I can’t complain about Tensai losing to Kofi Kingston in one. That was it. They wrestled for a minute, Kofi dodged a corner charge and hit Trouble In Paradise for the win. The post-match celebration and Wade Barrett’s attack lasted longer than the match itself. It’s Tensai/Kofi, though, so what do you want me to do, write a Grantland piece about it?

I like Wade Barrett a lot, but he shouldn’t be able to get another IC title shot just by showing up and elbowing Kofi. Kofi’s response should be, “yeah, we’re wrestlers, I get it, you attacked me, but I beat you at the pay-per-view, so at the Rumble I’m defending against Justin Gabriel. Deal with it.” And then he could try to put on sunglasses and poke himself in the eye, because Kofi Kingston.

Worst: #AJAll

1. Big ups to Teagan and Sara for getting a song on Raw, even if it’s their “Liz Phair in the twilight of her career/Why Can’t I?” desperation pop hit.

2. Derrick Bateman and Kaitlyn were robbed.

3. I miss the shit out of Maxine.

4. I’ve read a lot of stuff online about how this award and segment (and everything involved with it) is to encourage the Hoeski-style slut-shaming of AJ. As the guy online who kinda-sorta conducts that train, yeah, I can see where you’re coming from, but this segment didn’t set off any alarms for me. It helped continue AJ’s weird psychological war with Vickie, eased her back into the Crazy = Violent AJ we loved (instead of Crazy = Emotional GM and post-GM AJ) and set up the final segment of the night. If anything, it was a nice way to recap her character arc in 2012, and yes, to continue a theme, the DANIEL IS A GREAT LOVER stuff made me miss the good old days, when YES chants still meant YES.

Never forget.

Worst: The Great Khali Versus David Otunga Is Seriously A Match We’re Having

You don’t want me to share a video of this, do you? This was so bad, the WWE Fan Nation video didn’t even bother to spell it correctly:

The Great Khali vs. David Ontunga: Raw, Dec. 17, 2012

The highlight of the match was probably JBL making Darwinism jokes about The Great Khali and Jerry Lawler getting SUPER EXCITED to jump in and talk about knuckle dragging. You know, during a match between two people of color. Anything can happen in the WWE!

Worst: Natalya, Jack Of All Trades

If you were upset by the video of AJ kissing a bunch of dudes, consider that those people were Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Kane, John Cena and Dolph Ziggler. If you want to know how bad it COULD’VE been, please think about poor Natalya, whose calendar year(s) involved 1) being a part of a team of tough girls who were just jealous of the pretty blonde and could not stop losing to roll-ups in under a minute, 2) begging Mr. McMahon to talk about the Hart Foundation backstage, only to have him walk away making dismissive wanking motions with his eyes, 3) being the girl who farts, and 4) being the “girlfriend” of the sideshow wrestlers, because when Vince thinks of wacky freaks his list goes “Khali, Hornswoggle, Nattie Neidhart.”

Just remember, if you are concerned about a woman on WWE television being slut-shamed, it could be worse — they could just be shamed non-stop for no reason. She is World Wrestling Entertainment’s Jerry Gergich, and I will never understand it.

Also, because I am an asshole, when she started dancing I thought she was going for The Cobra.

I’ve been dreaming of a tag team tournament, with a “million dollar prize” that’s ultimately won in a ladder match by the team of Big Show and Mark Henry after all the ladders break so Mark picks up Show on his shoulders piggyback style to reach the briefcase.

I thought it was odd that Kaitlyn did the post-match pose for maybe two seconds. Either she thought it was dumb, and didn’t commit, or someone at ringside was telling her to GTFO because it was time for another Slammy.

The most impressive thing WWE has done is make me roll my eyes at Ziggler running in to cash the briefcase, as in “Oh how is he not going to be allowed to cash in this time?” The fact that it was sour grapes Cena made me depressed more than anything. I feel like I shouldn’t be cynical about something like that, but you know, way to go Cena.

Please don’t think I’m picking a fight here, but I don’t understand why Antonio doing the smart thing and just leaving doesn’t fall squarely into the “this is what faces do/this is what heels do” dynamic. Wasn’t losing by count-out the way Money Inc kept their titles for so long? …I mean, I don’t *like* the “cowardly heel” thing, because it’s done too much. But… I don’t know. This seemed more ‘smart’ than ‘cowardly.’

OK, yeah, that makes sense.
When I saw the match was happening, I (and I think a lot of us here) were afraid WWE would do the stupidest thing possible, and have Ryback dominate him. So at least that didn’t happen.

I said it last night, but I’ll say it again here: Ryback beating Cesaro for the US title is a good thing for both of them. Ryback needs some kind of belt to legitimize his “monster” push, and Cesaro will then be free to become the main event heel that he should be.

Hi. I don’t post here often but here’s my opinion on John Cena’s motivation behind attacking Ziggler. I know WWE isn’t known for being ambiguous with their character development, but I’d like to think that this is how the reasoning went down. Cena’s supposed to be a superhero, a super face and a really good guy, when in reality he’s obsessed with winning and he probably goes against human instinct and his natural greed every time he tries to be a nice guy. He isn’t a face, he’s just being a face because he has to be. So attacking Ziggler was a moment where he let emotion get the better of him, and as best as Jerry Lawler, Michael Cole and a hapless JBL could they sort of conveyed that by not really trying to justify it especially after Sheamus’ actions were justified just a second earlier.

So Cena attacking Ziggler wasn’t justified or a face move, it was just something he did because he was frustrated with everything that had happened to him, capped by winning Superstar of the Year in a year where he didn’t even deserve to be kayfabe nominated. He lost to Ziggler and felt he deserved the case so he attacked him, and I think it’s as simple as that. I think it probably would have been better if he was a little more despondent in his acceptance speech and simply came out and said he didn’t deserve it or whatever, but I don’t think it’s a huge deal that he did that, it’s not like Ziggler doesn’t have the case anymore.

Also, I’ll remain skeptical of this ADR face turn. Maybe I expected too much out of Miz’s turn and he broke my heart by calling Sandow and Rhodes gayboys. So when ADR calls Paul Heyman a walrus, I will not feel as sad as I could have been.

As long as ADR has Ricardo, he’ll be an effective face. I mean, look at RR, the guy vomits lovability. Every week for a while he can get beaten up by Primo or whoever, and ADR will run out and save him. Until Del Rio gets tired of saving him so decides to train him to take care of himself, resulting in at least 9 hilarious and heartwarming video packages showing their development. Del Rio will become more lovable, and Ricardo will become an awesome wrestler. And then they come and live with me. The end.

I’d really get behind AJ being the one that let The Shield in to begin with, and now she’s just bringing in NXT guys to ruin fuck up everyone’s good day.

AJ was never viewed as anything more than “The Girl” to these guys. She was sexualized, and made in to something she never wanted to be. She wanted to wrestle, and she was never given that chance. She was only allowed to be a valet, and skip and say “YES”, and hold a belt.

Then she was offered a position of power, as a GM. Still not wrestling. Still not what she wanted to do. So she took the job, toed the line, did their song and dance, all while quietly bringing in guys that she knew would respect her, because they had the same dream she did: To wrestle.

So she assembles The Shield, she brings in Big E., and then fuck it tonight, she can bring in Cassius Ohno to knock Sheamus the fuck out or whatever. All the while, she was quietly scouting Dolph, because Dolph was ALSO never respected.

The whole A.J. storyline is going to be a failure, no matter what direction it goes, because there’s no respected kayfabe place for a woman in the WWE.

What could possibly be her ultimate goal? Divas champion? (Don’t make me laugh.) Managing GM Supervisor-type person? (To be overruled at Vince’s whim, plus we’ve been down that road before.) Even if it’s as simple as getting revenge on the men she feels used and wronged her, well… WWE is a never-ending story, so at what point is victory, and what happens after?

Wrestling is always going to have a denouement problem, but at least for the wrestlers there’s the promise of new matches and feuds. For A.J., the only possible result is for her to end up as much less important than she is right now, and that makes me sad.

Ideally, the storyline would create more respected positions for women in WWE, or at the very least create a Divas division with interesting people and characters in it instead of “pointer” and “bitch.”

No, her ultimate goal should be to be the puppetmaster behind various anarchic elements throughout WWE TV.

She’s the Joker dressed like Harley Quinn.

She should never wrestle until they’ve built her up so much that the only one who can take her down is someone like Kharma (ideally it would be Chyna, but it’d be hard to take her seriously as a ‘returning hero’ at this point)

I’m surprised. No Worst, not even a mention of the terrible Santino/Tensai segment where we basically watched Tensai’s WWE career fade away as if he were never there? I felt legit bad for the dude during that bit.

Also: i was so worried that Ryback was going to beat Ceasaro last night, i almost didn’t watch the match. I *guess* leaving is a better option than losing to stupid Ryback, but that whole thing just made no damn sense. Pull goddamn Yoshi Tatsu out of mothballs for Ceasaro to beat or something.

I’m really bummed about the rollercoaster WWE has put me on the past couple of days. TLC was awesome, and i was hyped for pretty much everything on that ppv. Then…RAW, and a single island of great in an ocean of terrible bullshit. I’ve never seen Big E Langston before last night, but the vacant look in his eyes and lack of expression on his face makes me think he’s just Bobby Lashley 2k12.

I’m gonna keep saying it until people listen to me: Cesaro will lose the title and it will be good for him. He’s going straight to the top, and you can tell because of the way the announcers have started verbally fellating him despite him being the heel.

He’ll lose to Ryback, but look like a boss in the process, and then get the big Royal Rumble run, or something like that, as part of his ascent to main event heel.

I hear what you’re saying, but i really don’t think it will shake out that way. If he gets a meteoric rise to the upper card, he’ll only be fed to Cena or Ryback and fall back down the ranks until fucking Fandango or whatever other terrible character is pinning him in under 3 minutes. WWE is great at a few things, but one of them (lately) hasn’t been star-making. This is why they keep going back to the well of Lesnars and Rocks and Cena is always never giving in on title matches or whatever.

He will lose to Ryback, look like a boss to us, and another midcard name to the WWE.

Plus, with as hard as Ryback is getting shoved down everyone’s throats, he doesn’t NEED the US title to get noticed. It’s better on Ceasaro right now, because it makes people stand out and take notice of him. Plus, he’s doing awesome at the “you Americans can’t even beat me to get your US title back, haw haw” thing. All while sneakily being the absolute best wrestler on the roster, bar none.

Right back into the road trip to hell aka the build to the Royal Rumble AKA the match that means nothing since just about everyone involved is going to Wrestlemania these days. TLC is how they hook you back in, sitting in the backseat as your idiot friends sing whatever lame music they picked up five seconds ago, and the driver’s asshole cousin won’t stop farting. There will be interesting stops, but you always sit there in that backseat, seething with untold loathing for yourself and your horrible taste in friends.

Indy wrestling, if you get a good one, is being the driver of said road trip. Nothing sucks because you are God and the poor fools stuck depending on you for a ride back home is all the succor you will ever need.

This report was more enjoyable than the entire show. I was glad to see Sheamus finally BE A STAR and act like the “next Cena” they want him to be. And I will always be glad to get another chapter of JSoM.

Thank you, Brandon, for a great year of reports and live threads! Can’t wait to see what the next year brings us. YAY WRESTLING!

God bless you brandon for drawing the comparisons between raw and glee. Its been over a year that ive been trying to tell people that glee and wrestling are pretty much the same product. Writers do the same thing, just swap songs and matches. Same product.

I’m not sure if Santino acknowleding that Tensai = Albert could help the big guy out. It could take some of the “fun” out of the stupid chanting, and give him more to play on personality-wise. Shouting “I came back from Japan for this sh*t?” and murdering Brodus Clay springs to mind.

Loved the idea of ADR training Ricardo. But I would rather have Ricardo plead with him to get help to train, so he can defend himself from all the psychos (Shield, Randy Orton, Santino Marella), and have ADR be a hard taskmaster…